Systematic Visuo-Textual Analysis: a framework for analysing visual and textual data

Over the past decades qualitative research has seen a linguistic and narrative turn (Atkinson, 1997), a participatory turn (Cornwall and Jewkes, 1995), a reflexive turn (Foley, 2002), a creative turn (Kara, 2015) and an emphasis on the sensory and embodied (Pink, 2015). Researchers now often combine some form of interviewing with the production of photographs, artefacts, collages, maps or drawings and the like. In practice, the artefacts produced are used to eliciting experiences and stimulating conversations for the interviews. The artefacts are a way into the conversation rather than data in themselves (Brown, 2019, 1). This may be due to differences in philosophical outlook on what is and should be data, but also due to the lack of theoretical constructs, frameworks and guides for how to deal with the artefact as data in a systematic analytical process. In our contribution, we present the Systematic Visuo-Textual Analysis, a framework developed to provide much-needed support for qualitative researchers in analysing artefacts in combination with interviews. Drawing on existing frameworks for visual and textual analysis the focus of this framework is to analyse visual and textual datasets separately and in conjunction with one another through several levels of interpretation from noticing descriptive elements and focussing on specific linguistic and artistic elements through to developing conceptual themes. Drawing on examples from our own research, we will demonstrate the practical application of the Systematic Visuo-Textual Analysis before concluding the presentation with a critical reflection on benefits and challenges relating to this particular framework